AGGRESSIVE competition from the EU market is slowly driving farmers out of the business, with many deciding to cut their losses and bail out before things get worse.
The trend was confirmed by statistics recently released by the Agriculture Ministry, revealing a mass departure of people involved in agriculture. Today there are an estimated 39.3 per cent fewer farmers than back in 1976. And according to the same source, at this rate some 300 to 400 farmers will leave the profession every year – roughly one person a day.
In 1976, a total of 36,900 people were registered as farmers; in 2004 this had plummeted to 22,400. Farmers now form just 7.1 per cent of the workforce.
Agricultural organisations cited these figures in backing their argument that farming is no longer profitable. They say that uncertainty about future income (due to the unpredictability of the weather) and lack of incentives is driving many out.
Farmers say EU entry is the major cause, but blame the government for not negotiating better terms for the sector. The core of the issue revolves around the abolition or limitation of subsidies. In particular, no more subsidies for grain means that the price of the commodity has more than doubled, making it impossible for the farmers to compete in a free market.
This has a knock-on effect on livestock ranchers, who cannot significantly raise the price of meat because they will be undercut by cheaper EU imports.
For their part, fruit growers are finding it next to impossible to compete with imported products now that tariffs have been scrapped.
In a bid to cut costs and stay afloat, farming organisations want greater access to cheaper labour afforded by foreign workers, but the government is hesitant to encourage this.
This practice, of enforcing EU regulations but not giving farmers the tools to cope, led the head of one organisation, to declare that the government was employing “Stalinist” methods in dealing with the countryside.
The once-protected sector is now wide open to competition from the vast EU market. As a result, local production, too small-scale and uneconomical, seems to be fighting a lost battle.
